ORANGE PARK – Her enthusiasm is infectious. Working with the Boys and Girls Club of Northeast Florida’s after-school programs isn’t just a job. It’s a mission and a passion. 

Cobi Gainous makes sure any child that wants to expand their education and character development won’t “get pushed away."

The Boys and Girls Club supports five core pillars – character and leadership, education and workforce readiness, the arts, health and wellness, and sports and wellness – at eight Clay County schools. Students rotate between the five classes each afternoon, in what Gainous calls a “Power Hour.” 

Each also gets a hot meal, a snack and some receive one-on-one tutoring from certified teachers. 

“People have a place for their kids to go to after school that is safe and it's free,” she said. 

The program is available at Clay and Orange Park highs, Keystone Heights Junior/Senior High, Orange Park and Wilkinson junior highs and Grove Park, Keystone Heights and Montclair elementary schools. 

The club sponsored the Boys and Girls Club of North Florida Robot Rally on Saturday, Dec. 6, at Orange Park High. There were 22 teams from Clay, Duval, Nassau, Alachua and St. Johns counties competing. Teams from Orange Park and Wilkinson junior highs and Keystone Heights Elementary were all selected to advance to the regional championships this weekend in Alachua County. 

The Robot Rally challenged teams to build, code, problem-solve, work together, and use their Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) knowledge to create robots. 

Lendward Griffin, the Senior Director of 21st Century Clubs, said the current grant will expire at the end of the current school year. They not only hope to raise money to continue the program, but also to expand to more schools. 

“If there are schools that are interested in getting Boys and Girls Club, they can definitely reach out to us to get some more information,” he said. “Our directors are really doing a great job making sure we are empowering our youth.” 

Gainous said she’s eager to help as many students as possible. 

“We do a six-week summer program where the kids can come in and get lunch, and they also get a snack,” she said. “We do field trips and different things like that. Our largest field trip last year was Sea World – no out-of-pocket for the kids. They didn’t pay for anything. We also took college tours and visited technical trade schools. 

“There are different things we do with our kids to push them to be at their fullest potential.”